New Releases
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October 25, 2019On Children and Art, his first new album since 2002, Mandy Patinkin performs songs by Randy Newman, Laurie Anderson, Lyle Lovett, Taylor Mac, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Waits, and Patinkin himself. The album was recorded in New York with pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) and features several songs previewed over the previous two years in the digital Diary series. Pre-order to download his take on Newman's "Wandering Boy" and Anderson's "From the Air" now.
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Rhiannon Giddens’s album there is no Other, recorded with the multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, was produced by Joe Henry and tracked over five days in Dublin. The album is at once a condemnation of “othering” and a celebration of the spread of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience. "This is acoustic roots music at its most glorious," exclaims Uncut, "and Giddens is fast becoming the genre’s brightest star in the firmament." The double-vinyl edition includes four additional tracks, expanded liner notes, and photos from the recording session.
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On composer William Brittelle’s album Spiritual America, indie rock duo Wye Oak, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and the Metropolis Ensemble perform a genre-defying electro-acoustic song cycle written by Brittelle, plus a Wye Oak piece re-imagined by Brittelle. On the album, Brittelle works to reconcile his youth in a conservative Christian household with his adult life as an "agnostic Buddhist." The project began when he endured a family crisis and instinctively found himself praying to God.
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The third in a series of musical installments from singer Mandy Patinkin and pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett, Diary: December 2018 was recorded by the two musicians in Bartlett's NYC studio. The eleven tracks of this Diary entry include two songs written by Patinkin himself plus songs by Paul Simon, Stephin Merritt (The Magnetic Fields), Randy Newman, Biff Rose, Teitur, and John Grant.
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Emmylou Harris's The Studio Albums, 1980–83 was first released for Record Store Day 2019. It comprises five classic titles—Roses in the Snow, Evangeline, Cimarron, Last Date, and White Shoes—on vinyl plus a bonus 45 RPM of "That Lovin' Feeling Again” with Roy Orbison b/w "Mr. Sandman." The collection is in a limited release of 1,100.
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On Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw's album Orange, Attacca Quartet performs six of her pieces for string quartet. "Completely gorgeous in so many ways," exclaims BBC Radio 3. "It hits you everywhere, all at once." "A love letter to the string quartet," says NPR. "[W]hen you hear all the imaginative sounds on Orange, you know you're listening to the voice of a strong composer."
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Gabriel Kahane shares two tracks inspired by his Book of Travelers project. "I wrote 'Little Love' as a looping study on guitar and always wanted to release a version that reflected the original concept," he says of the new “ruined lace edition” of that Book of Travelers track. "'Trophy Longhorns' appears as a solo piano tune in the staged version of Book of Travelers," he says of the other new track; "it didn't fit emotionally or aesthetically with the rest of the album, but I thought it should see the light of day."
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Joshua Redman Quartet's Come What May is the first album in almost two decades from this group of musicians—the saxophonist and his longtime friends and colleagues pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson—and features seven Redman tunes. "Nothing beats the cool confidence of a band who have spent years on the road,” says the Times. “It also helps that the seven Redman tunes here are so good ... Four men playing as one."
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The double-vinyl edition of David Byrne's Nonesuch debut album, Grown Backwards, first released on the album's 15th anniversary in 2019, is the original album plus six additional tracks, including a duet with Caetano Veloso on their song "Dreamworld." It's "one of Byrne's most rewarding experiments yet," says the Guardian. "It fits alongside the best of his career and adds another solid release to a solo catalog which will hopefully become more cherished in time," said Pitchfork in 2004. "In 20 years, as we straighten our faces with botulism, braces, and stem cells, the album will stand up."